MadGirl
by Lucy Fell
Summary: The man who murdered my parents saved me, raised me, then abandoned me. Six years later I set out back to Gotham to find him. I didn't know it then, but it wouldn't be hard. No, even though his face is unrecognizable, his voice is not something I could ever forget. And I was going to make sure he would never forget mine either.
1. i Jobbery

i _Jobbery_

He walked into the apartment building fully aware of what he had to do. The plan had been set in motion just by opening the door. The details were still up in the air, just the way he liked them. Finding the most excitement on the edge of his seat, waiting to see where all of the chips would fall. It was something he decided on as he took the train home. Spontaneous. The thought had been just a blip in his mind a few days ago. But like most blips in this mind, they festered, feeding off of his curiosity and paranoia, until they become more than thoughts, but plans and actions. Once he decided to do something, his mind would not rest until the task had been fulfilled. Never once sitting down to think about consequences, because what was _life_ without a little _spontaneity? _Where's the fun in knowing what will happen? A thought like this could one day get him into trouble, he was aware. Tragically, he could never have known that moment was only a few minutes away.

The man behind the counter, a security guard in his early 50's, told him that he couldn't come in here, no one would want company, not this late at night.

A smile played on his face. A 'normal' person would have been annoyed with a stranger assuming things about him, and who he was coming to pay a visit to. Maybe the outside stranger was annoyed, he just had a different way of showing it than most, a different way of showing every emotion, really. And that made it difficult for anyone to know what he was feeling, even harder to figure out what he was thinking. Some people found him tiresome, others found him fascinating. The truth was not a single 'normal' person really _understood_ him, and they would drive themselves mad trying, they had. Because who can make sense of insanity but the insane? He began to speak, with a voice that one would find hard to forget, if able to at all, "Oh... _I_ don't know, I'm a _very_ popular guy,"

"Sir-" The guard tried hard to form a coherent sentence, really he couldn't force the man to leave, but it had been really late, and he wasn't _supposed_ to let anyone in unless specifically told by the tenant. No one had informed the desk of a visitor, so he was inclined to convince the man to leave. Security was a temporary job for him, just until his wife had finalized her job at the library so they could retire somewhere far away from Gotham. Temporary meaning he had only been working there a few weeks. What was he supposed to do in this situation? He didn't have to think about it long before being cut off, staring down the end of the reason he wished to leave.

On the opposite side of the counter, the man who was almost always quick to draw a knife decided on a gun instead. Knives show you the beautiful art of dying, but guns are quicker. And tonight, he had a feeling, he would need even just an extra few seconds. Never shy of talking, his words leaving imprints like memories, "Y'know I wouldn't tell a guy like me..." he paused momentarily, thinking to himself, "a guy like me... well I wouldn't tell a guy like me what to do. See, you never know what people are capable of." Adding a grunt on the end, raising his eyebrows and smiling wider, as if to say 'You see?'

Although the guard was staring down the end of a gun, he wasn't all that scared. He'd seen his share of criminals, and this guy just didn't peg him for one, despite the repeated phrase 'a guy like him'. He really wasn't sure what to make of the term, he seemed normal. Ordinary if not just a little off the rocker. Maybe just drunk. Really, that was the guard ultimately decided on, just drunk. Wandering into this building after a cast party. It was then that it all began to click in place, the showy outfit, the gimmick-like pistol one could've easily mistaken for a prop in a play. Everything pointed to this man being an actor, drinking to his glory, good fortune, and sorrows away after a show. He finally understood and began smiling.

Upon seeing this, the outside stranger's body began to convulse and shake with laughter. Stomping his foot, and holding his gut with his free hand. The guard seeing this joined him. What a very strange sight. A random man walking into a random building on a random night, he continued to laugh, completely unaware.

Though, there really was nothing random about this. As soon as security started to laugh, pistol-wielding stopped dead and stared at him. No one had ever understood his jokes, they all just laughed at him. And he hated it, perhaps more than he hated anything else.

In seconds there was blood against the far wall, and the old gun smoked. The scene grotesque and gruesome, laughter arose from the back of his throat again. _What a punchline! _he thought.

_A joker walks into an apartment building..._

Whooping with laughter, only broken up by bouts of breathing and smaller giggles, he made his way over toward the elevator, mumbling to himself, "…who wouldn't want to see me? Ha!" Not even he was sure if he was making a sarcastic joke or he simply just enjoyed talking to himself, and that thought brought him even closer to hysterics.

When the door to the elevator opened, Joker tried, but couldn't recollect pushing the button. Quick thinking was something he had always been blessed with, especially when it had to do with illegal tendencies,a feild which he reveled in. Quick thinking meant that the officer never even had a chance to think about grabbing his gun, not when one was already pointed in his face. Not when the bullet pierced his sternum. Especially not when his insides fell along the back wall and slid down just a fraction of a second slower than the rest of him.

Kicking the legs of the cop out of the way so he had just enough room to step in, pressing the 10 button and waiting patiently as the doors closed, he finally looked down at what he had done. He questioned, to himself, why a cop was coming down the elevator, and had he known the situation in the lobby? Or was he simply on his way to work the night shift?

Well, he smiled, and crouched down, it didn't matter anymore, did it? Touching the blood with his bare fingers was exhilarating. He took pleasure in it, he took pleasure in everything that he did. The worse, the crazier it was, the more he enjoyed it. Some people wondered if he got off on insanity, but honestly, he never really thought about it. It was true that the things he did, he did them because nothing else made him feel quite so alive. But, it was in the way that a good joke could make a person a smile. Being with someone you love also makes a person smile, but that doesn't make the two the same. He wasn't sexually attracted to the crime, no, but perhaps when you add a woman into the mix, he'd be more inclined. Who really knows, though? Who can know anything for sure?

As he stood up, he traced his fingers against the mirrored wall, leaving three streaks of blood. They could and would find his fingerprints, but they'd run them through the system and wouldn't find him, and even if they did, what could it say?

"Name: Unknown

Alias: The Joker

Age: Late Teens

Race: Clown"

No, trying for fingerprints was pointless, but they'd do it anyway. Gotham PD wasn't the smartest bunch. Actually- Gotham PD hadn't even heard of him up to that point, even though he'd been on the scene for quite a while, as long as he can remember. He tried hard to lay as low as possible, but he'd murdered more than a few times, and he was never a suspect. He didn't want to create too much chaos, not yet. Everything had to be perfect, and he was still new to this game, he needed more years to figure out this city in order to destroy it and have it for his own. Looking at his handy-work, one wouldn't have thought he was so young, you could see his dwindling sanity even by the crime scenes No, they would think he'd been in this for years. Maybe he had been born with the knack for murder, maybe he was just brought up that way. Nature vs Nurture and that entire argument. If you thought about it you'd have to wonder who his parents where, or who raised him, and if they were the same two things. Most importantly, _who were they?_ Any person who wanted to know anything about him would have to know where he came from, what made him become this monster. He couldn't even remember, and maybe that had something to do with just how insane he really was. Sometimes, he said, he remembered it one way, and other times he remembered it another.

Nothing specific had triggered this, which might be hard to believe. Some speculate he was involved in some type of great tragedy, that he witnessed something he shouldn't have. Many think he might have been subject to experimental drugs and mental health practices. Maybe he had a lobotomy of sorts and instead of making him a walking zombie, it turned him into a walking sociopath. Maybe it was in his blood. Or maybe, all it took was just one bad day.

People could question his origin until the day he died, and they would never get any closer to knowing what happened, what he knew, what he thought, what made him tick. What possibly could be going on or had happened to make a just human being, just a man, do the things he did. Bright eyes, glowing skin, and the most beautiful smile. Really, if you saw him in the street you might gawk and stare and even tell your friends he was handsome, like a movie star.

He looked at himself in the mirrored wall behind the streaks of blood, at his outfit. Mismatched patterns of green and purple, he had chosen those colors on a whim. Every villain should have a costume, he mused earlier this week. He wasn't a villain yet, no, just a murderer, a thief. He will be, though, one day he hopes. This city will be his no matter what it takes. Every villain he knows has a sort of theme. And he had always felt… comical in a way. Even the idea came to him in a dream. When he awoke from the dream all he could remember was flipping through a stack of cards over and over before landing on a Joker. That's it, that's all he could think of. Somehow- the thought stuck with him. This Joker card was important, even though no one really bothered to pay any mind to it. Just set it aside and go on with the game. But this Joker card was wild and had the ability to be or do anything. It just felt right, he was a man, as sick and twisted as it was he laughed all the time. He laughed at the pain in others, taunting them, egging it on. They didn't understand just how weak they really were, it was pathetic. He just wanted to end the idiocy.

The elevator doors opened, and he walked down the hallway.

No one would ever know these things, though, no one could ever guess. Even to himself, everything before this night became a blur. Because this night would decide his fate permanently. Something irreversible and irrevocably monumental lay behind the door he knocked on labeled 1014.


	2. ii Jocosity

He rapped loudly on the door in front of him, sure to wake any person sleeping inside. A bit to his surprise, a man answered almost right away. The man adjacent to him, standing with one arm lazily propping him up against the door frame, looked one rent check away from homelessness.

The man yawned widely, scratching the top of his head, "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

The Joker was not amused by his rhetorical question, not amused by his tone of voice, or his lazy manor. He was not fond of this man's attitude already, something that did not bode well for apartment number 1014. His words cool and calculated in response, "What difference does it make?"

The man was confused at this, no one comes to an apartment building this late at night to shoot the shit with someone they'd never met. No one ever came to see him at all, no one but the owner of the building demanding their utilities be paid. Seven beers deep, and he's more angry at the stranger than understanding, "The difference is that I don't want to listen to your religious bullshit at 1 O'clock in the morning."

"What a riot!" and the Joker burst out with the same bouts of laughter that he had been trying to suppress since the elevator ride. Everything was making him laugh that night. Perhaps it was the adrenaline in his veins, or perhaps that was just the way he was before everything changed. The Joker pushed passed the man, and let himself into the apartment without an invitation. He thought that he might sit down and have a small chat with the man before ultimately ruining his night, but decided against it when he realized that there would be no suitable place to sit. There was trash everywhere in the small apartment building. Small wrappers, containers, beer bottles and cans, and clothes littered the ground. The Joker couldn't tell if the man was too confused or too drunk to ask him to leave. He couldn't figure out why the man was not yelling at him, screaming at him to get out. And for the briefest moment, he felt sorry for him. Felt sorry that this man was so weak, that he couldn't even fight back.

"Who the hell are you? Get out!" The man finally shouted, and the feeling of pity was gone.

Right before his response, a woman came out of the recesses of the apartment. Rubbing her eyes, and walking without picking her feet up off of the ground. A creature, the Joker decided, worthy of such a husband. She yawned, too, before asking a similar question, "Who's this, babe?" She wasn't angry, she probably just figured he was some back ally friend of his. He assumed that the man had a lot of strange visitors in the middle of the night. Maybe some were even stranger than him. Maybe not.

"What difference does it make?" The same question permeated the tension waivered in the air like stale smoke. The Joker's voice deep and serious, something that he usually wasn't, something he took note of in order to change quickly. "Who I am shouldn't matter to you, especially since nothing else does!" He shot a quick glance around the apartment, just to let them know what he meant, "but, uh, why don't we cut to the chase?" With those last words, he drew a different pistol out of his breast pocket, and aimed it at the man.

It was no sooner that the woman screamed, and the man took a drunken step back into his front door, which was no closed, raising his arms up as if to surrender, "What the fuck, man? What do you want?"

He smiled, those were the words that he had been waiting for, not 'who' but 'what', "I want you to kill your wife." As the words left his mouth, he let the gun drop around his index finger, and he held it out for the man to take from him.

The drunk took the gun with slight hesitation, his hands shaking. He looked at his wife, who was no longer sleepy. She was scared, but not hysterical, the whole thing seemed like a dream, like some giant prank. Just a joke, she thought, this was just a joke.

Without question, the man aimed the gun at the stranger opposite him. Without hesitation, he pulled the trigger, squinting his eyes waiting for the inevitable loud pop, and the drawback that he had only ever heard about. But it didn't come, to his relief. He opened his eyes to see a waving flag out of the barrel of the pistol, one that said nothing more than "Bang!".

His relief washed over him for the smallest instant, before the Joker spoke up, "Did I give you the wrong gun? How silly of me," he reached again into his breast pocket, and pulled out another gun, "Looks like I'll just have to do it for you."

He smirked slightly for a moment, before he shot the woman in the head. She didn't even have enough time to scream before her body hit the floor. The noise of her head clunking was loud compared to the silence that followed.

The man dropped the fake gun, his face fell too. He looked at the other man, desperate for an answer. Any answer, anything that would console him, even if for just a moment. He needed something to tell him it might be okay. He just stared at the ground in front of him "Why'd you do it?" His voice was small.

The joker looked, actually angry for once, "What do you mean, why? Can't it ever be the simple reason that I felt like killing your wife? Killing someone? Anyone? Can't it be that I felt like taking something that belonged to someone else? Can't it ever be simple? You people... you try so hard to make everything so fucking complicated! With your reasons, and your silly little logic! There is no reason for this.." He smiled again, looking the man, who was now on his knees, directly in the eye, ".. it's just good fun."

The man let his head lull down, he didn't really know what to do or what to say, but the Joker had enough words for the two of them. The stranger continued rambling, "Now, now. Don't be too sad. You're not going to have to live without her." He grabbed the man's hair, now crouching behind him, talking directly into his ear, "You lost your job down at the docks nearly a year ago. In the narrows. I'd seen you there every night from my apartment building. I _watch_ people. When you left, I found myself wondering what had become of you. I don't wonder about a lot of people. I don't _care_ about a lot of people. I thought maybe you'd finally made something of yourself. I felt, for a moment, _proud_ of you. And so I find out where you live, a decent apartment in the good part of Gotham. But at this point I've got this gnawing feeling in the pit of my stomach, do you ever get that?" He didn't wait for answer, but pulled out a knife from his sock, and held it to the mans eye, "I had the feeling that you weren't a man so much as a coward. Even in a nice apartment, you've got no job. What, did _she_ support you?" He motions toward the body on the floor, with a spreading pool of blood underneath of her. "Regardless of how you got by, I can just… _tell_ you're weak. I can't stand weakness. You're a pretty important man, though, you know. You made me realize something important, that I should never _care_ about anyone." Suddenly the knife was through the man's eye, splitting his brain in half where the blade touched it. When the Joker let go of his grasp on the man's hair, his body fell face forward, forcing the blade as deep as it could go.

He stood up and just as he was about to leave unscathed and happy, he had heard a wailing from the other room. It wasn't in pain, and it wasn't scared. The Joker stepped over the bodies; he was curious just what kind of animal would die of starvation if he didn't let it loose. Walking to the other side of the messy apartment he opened a door and turned on a very dim. What he could make out was a small lump of blankets in a crib. Just a little baby girl, from what he could gather, that had just woken up. The Joker was going to just walk away, walk away from the poor soul that would die alone, never knowing the feeling of love or hate.

Just turn the light out, and walk away on that cute little darling baby forever. But this baby looked like it had been just born, not even a week ago. This baby girl had never committed any sin, and was never even given a chance. It didn't seem to sit right with him, he thought that everyone should be given the same chance to live, and be given the same chance to fuck up, once they decided their fate, well then they could die. If he left that baby in the crib it would either die alone, or be auctioned off to some foster parents that lived in the narrows. No sane couple would ever adopt a baby whose parents had been murdered in cold blood. No sane person would ever want this baby.

It seemed to him then, that he had no choice but to take her in himself.

Her name, he decided, would be Cain.  
>The name of the world's first murderer.<p> 


	3. iii Jejunity

iii Jejunity

Hell, I decided as I sat waiting for my turn to stand, is Gotham City. Always haunting me, plaguing my mind like rats scampering about with nothing better to do than _annoy_ me. Gotham had become a nuisance since I'd left, since I'd _been_ left, since I'd been _taken_. Growing up here, you might not know the difference, might not know what it's like to live on the outside. To some, it might just seem like a city. But to us, us few, us alone, it's _our_ city.

The woman in front of me stands and edges her way down the aisle, so I proceed to follow suit. Stretching my legs out from under me, I duck low to not bump myself on the overhead above. Stepping closer to the outside, I can finally stand up straight. Reaching above me I open the hinged door to get a small backpack filled with unimportant things to deal with menial life. I look, once more, out of the small airplane window, before making my way down the narrow walk.

I think quietly to myself about what I have to do next. Wondering just what I thought would happen when I stepped off the plane, finally arriving _home_. What? Did I think he'd just be _waiting_ for me? No, no, no. No trail of blood to lead me to him. Looking around the airport terminal, I mentally curse myself for thinking that anything could be so simple. For not thinking _anything _through. I'm not a woman of plans, I just go, I just _do_. Which is an asset when you live in Gotham as a cri-mi-nal, but not so half-way across the country; Not-so, it seems when your foster parents are all about their little _plans_. Their _schemes_. Their _schedules_.

As I walk aimlessly around the terminal searching for a place to eat, it hits me. I'm _free_. Finally free from everything and all that has kept me captive these past years. Finally free to be _home_ again. Free to do as I so please, and I can live however I'd like. Wherever I'd like. Live and do whatever, whenever I'd like. My very first step at becoming my own person, I decide to eat dinner at the very next restaurant I see. Spon_tane_ous.

The first sign of food that comes into sight is a sports bar, doors closed probably to prevent noise and light from bustling in. I wrap my fingers around the fake painted brass handle, and pull the heavy wooden door towards me to let myself inside. Smoke fills my nostrils, and I remember that Gotham doesn't see law, it only sees _guidelines_. If a man wanted to smoke in a bar, he'd do it. If a man wanted to burn the city down, _he'd do it_. Hell, I decided, is home.

I take a seat by myself at the bar. Too young to drink, and I'm grateful that the bartender doesn't give me a second glance when I ask him what his favorite drink to make is, "The Persephone," he grins.

"Ah, what's in it?" I smile back, he's cute enough with short brown messy hair.

"It's vodka, mostly, mixed with some club soda and pomegranate juice," I hesitate to answer, musing it over in my mind, "Tell ya what, if you don't like it, I'll make you another drink. On me."

"I can't say no to that," I smirked back at him, I never could say no to free alcohol. I'd picked up a couple of bad habits in California. Going to school, I made friends with people who said they wanted "anarchy", who said they believed in a world without rules. I found myself attracted to them, they wanted what I _knew_, they wanted to live the life I'd been from. But soon, I realized, as most things are; too good to be true. These people, these young girls and boys, they didn't want destruction, corruption, _chaos_. They only wanted drugs, sex, and the fashion of it. For a while, I had been pulled into that lifestyle. Trying to fill myself with any substance just to _forget_. But, I realized quickly, it only helped me remember. Nights spent smoking dope by the train-tracks only made me miss him. "You're father", they'd say, "It's only natural to miss your father." The counselors appointed to me were all the same. I'd tell them many times, "He's _not_ my father. My father died years ago, and I don't miss him _at all_." They'd shrug it off as if I'd said something absolutely crazy, as if they didn't _want_ to believe it. To me it was a cruel joke, ripping me from my home and telling me that my whole life was a lie. Trying daily to convince me that my thoughts, my beliefs, were wrong. It was infuriating, so I stopped going and I filled my loneliness with drugs, booze, and the company of the opposite sex. My foster parents hated it nearly as much as they hated me. Coming into _their_ house with _their _children, and not obeying _their_ rules. Must be nice, I thought, to have the illusion of so much power.

The bartender pushes the tall glass of dark tinted purple liquid into my hand with a smile, and I return one the same. I take a sip out of the straw, and I'm not unhappy by what greets me. Fruity and bitter at the same time, I think I might have found my new 'usual'. Taking another sip I'm briefly surprised by a hard object that passes it's way through the straw. I put it between my teeth before taking it out of my mouth to examine it. A seed.

"Pomegranate seeds," the bartender notices my actions, quickly dismissing them with an explanation, "it goes along with the story."

I pop the seed back in my mouth to eat it, trying to understand the texture more than enjoy it, "What story?"

The bartender looks down at the other people at the bar, making sure that they're drinks are filled and that they're satisfied watching the game on the big screen on the wall, before settling in front of me to tell me the tale of, what I assume is, Persephone. "It's Greek Mythology, I'm sure you've heard it before."

"I haven't, enlighten me." I prop my arms up on the bar, head cradled in my right hand, listening intently. I was more interested than I should have been. But at this time of night in this _city_ this place was good as any to hear a story. And lurking on the surface of my thoughts was the idea that I did not have a place to sleep. Maybe _this _man would want to take me home tonight. The thought is not terribly unpleasant.

"Persephone," he starts slow, shaking me from my own thoughts, "was the goddess of vegetation. By living on earth she made everything grow beautiful. The harvests, the flowers, the trees. Everything was alive because of her. One day she was captured by Hades, who swore he'd have her for his very own. He kept her as a prisoner in the underworld, saying she could never leave him. On earth, her mother went to Zeus and asked if there was anything that could be done. He said that as long as she didn't eat any of the food of the underworld, they could get her back. But if she had taken even a bite, she would be doomed to be there forever." He stopped momentarily, "Do you want another drink?"

I hadn't even noticed that I'd finished mine until he asked, but now that he mentioned it, "Yeah sure, is that the end of the story?" I asked a bit confused.

"No, no." He continued while making me another drink, "Anyway, so basically as long as Persephone didn't eat any of the food in hell she would be able to come back and live with her mother. By this time, all of the planet is basically dying. All of the plant life is gone, and people are starting to be buried by snow, they need to get Persephone back. But when they talk to Hades they found out that she had already eaten. Only a six pomegranate seeds, but she had eaten food from hell, and so, even though she could leave occasionally to make the grass grow, and the flowers bloom, she was always cursed to come back to be with Hades. She became his queen."

The story vibrates inside of me, struck speechless I'm glad when the guy a couple of seats down asks for another drink, and I have a couple more minutes to think. I look down at my refilled glass, carefully counting the seeds inside. _Six_, I mouth to myself. I've eaten the food of hell and now I'm destined to return forever. Tied by invisible bonds that flow under and inside. Though, I know I don't want to leave. I've found my _hell_, my _home_, and now I've got to find my _Hades_.


End file.
